What's in a name?

No, I really am "Mark A Savage", honest guv'nor. It says so on my birth certificate so it must be true. No hiding behind a pseudonym on this blog, though whether I should or not is another matter.

I had to laugh when I turned on for the Daily Service on BBC Radio 4 last Tuesday, to hear the end credits for the previous programme: "Mark Savage went to 'Meet the Bloggers'". Did I? I must admit that I don't remember those particular encounters, and if I did- where's my lovely cheque for 15 minutes of BBC airtime- I could do with the cash right now! Still, given my own love of blogging, it seemed really appropriate that he should have put this typical Radio 4 gem together. I seriously feel I really ought to contact my namesake: it's rather spooky that we're both radiophiles, it seems.

Anyway, Meet the Bloggers proved to be really interesting, when I got round to listening to it this Sunday afternoon. You can catch the latest edition if you're reading this in September (it's a series of five) from the Radio 4 website by clicking on my posting title above,and following the link to the "Listen Again" feature. Mind you, it's just as well I'm an honest soul, as I actually did get a cheque which I think was intended for that BBC producer/presenter some years ago while I was working as a broadcast assistant. Needless to say, I rapidly sent it back to it's proper home, though perhaps with a little sorrow that I hadn't managed to make the full-time career in radio that clearly this native Savage had.

The trouble is, you can't rely on your name alone these days to testify to your uniqueness as a person. Even less so can you count on the integrity of others to respect your right to its exclusive use in a financial capacity. We're told that identity theft is rife- yet I can't help wondering if this is sometimes an over-hyped story designed to make money for those same sort of people that made a fortune out of scare stories of the dreaded "Millennium Bug"- which proved to be about as harmless as a ladybird in most cases. The company which tried to sell my brother extra identity theft cover on his insurance policy the other day must think they've found a goldmine in our fears of someone impersonating us.

Then there are the cases where people quite legitimately choose to change their names. Ask when Reg Dwight or Harry Webb last had a hit and many folk would look blankly at you or think you're having a laugh. Tell them that you're talking about Sir Elton John and Sir Cliff Richard respectively and it would be a different story. Clearly, there can be great advantages to changing your name, though sometimes the most bizarre of real family names do you no harm. Yes, there really was a Clarence Birdseye, just as much as a simply named Thomas Cook, WH Smith and even, once, an old McDonald who had some cows before he decided they'd make better burgers (sorry to offend any of my vegetarian readers).

This week's news has included the confusing and ultimately rather sad tale of a girl allegedly kidnapped from outside her school gates in Stornoway on Scotland's Orkney Islands. Her tearful, shaking mother appeared before cameras earlier in the week, emotionally pleading for the safe return of "Molly Campbell" amid claims her father had abducted her to take her to Pakistan to be forced into marriage.

Yet by the end of the week, we saw that "Molly" was safe and well in Pakistan, with her father and siblings. She had apparently gone there of her own accord. Except now she wished to be known by her Islamic name of Misbah Iram Ahmed Rahma, thus carrying with her the surname of her father who had been estranged from her mother for five years. Amid all the tug-of-love wranglings of the story- I found myself really feeling for the mother when the story first broke, and said a quick prayer- for the media there's the new ethical dilemma of what they call the subject at the heart of this story while it's news. Misbah or Molly? What name should she be called? It's her right under British laws to have an identity of her own choosing, after all.

Showbiz celebrities might have even more liberty, to choose names and cast them off again at their whim and fancy. There is at least one pop star fallen from grace who went through several incarnations very different from the name on his birth certificate. In Britain and the US, at least, it's also something the rest of us can do with ease if we choose, traditionally and officially by deed poll. But probably for most it's a complication too far, given that so much paperwork and before long, I fear, compulsory identity cards carry the names we were born with.

Yet God who carries "the name which is above all other names" recognised that nomenclatures can harm or heal, bless or curse. Is that maybe why Abram gained a syllable and became Abraham, the father of many nations- especially in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic worlds? Whereas the hated persecutor and executor of Christians, Saul, changed a consonant and overturned his life, and became one of the greatest apostles of Christianity and writer of much of the New Testament.

"John Mark" wrote the first of the gospels but most of us know him as Saint Mark, presumably to avoid confusion with Saint John. His familiar name means "warrior" or "warlike", somewhat ironically in homage to the Roman god of war, Mars. And I'm a Savage by name (my late father's) but not by nature- anything but. But perhaps the name's not so inappropriate after all. I would give up anything and everything- even the fame of seeing my by-line in print (as I have done several times this year) or at the end of a radio programme, for the namesake of Our Father, whose name is hallowed indeed, and his son, Jesus the Christ. I suppose I like to see myself as a warrior for Christ, in fact.

I'm not telling you here what my "A" stands for- but it's not actually Anthony like a certain present premier who's garnered a lot of column centimetres in the last couple of days and all because of a mug which suggests the personal qualities of all who bear this name, even if many of them like number 10's current occupant prefer the diminutive "Tony". But does his name alone mean we can really believe everything Mr Blair tells us about his plans for the future?

OK, so ultimately, what IS in a name? It depends who gave the name and how you prove it, I guess. One piece of paper can't prove you are who you say you are. It can't say anything about who you really are inside, your history, hopes and dreams, or who you yet might be. But a name given by the king of kings and written on your heart can.